MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Roy Moore in junior high school set a goal of attending West Point. But when his family moved, he feared the change of schools would hurt his grade point average.

What did he do? He hitchhiked 15 miles every morning, catching rides with steel mill workers and arriving hours before class began, so that he could finish out the year at his old school.

"I wouldn't advise that today for any child," Moore said recently.

Determination, for better or for worse, has been a trademark throughout the career of the man who is now the Republican nominee for chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court.

Nearly a decade has passed since his ouster from the same job after Moore refused to obey a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the Alabama Judicial Building. Moore maintains that the judge's order was unlawful and his ouster unnecessary. And though he said that he will not return the monument if elected, Moore also vows to continue to fight for what he believes.

Moore, like his opponent, Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Bob Vance, has said the top problem facing the courts is funding. County clerks have about half the manpower they need, Moore said.

"I don't think anyone, Republican or Democrat has failed to recognize that there is a funding crisis," Moore said.

But Moore said he also sees "adherence to the Constitution" as a problem facing the courts.

"I think we are seeing judges in the state follow the pattern of judges in the federal district courts that want to make law instead of interpret the law they are sworn to uphold," Moore said.

Moore, who fulfilled his boyhood dream of graduating from West Point, said he often visits a place called Constitution Corner when he returns to the campus. The plaques outside the entrance to Washington Hall tell cadets that the United States military broke with the ancient military custom of swearing loyalty to a leader. Instead, the pledge is to uphold the Constitution.

"I fought in a war and risked my life to defend the Constitution. I've worked in the law for 30 years upholding the Constitution. It is the thing that I think we need to turn back to in this election. I hear very little discussion about the Constitution anywhere," Moore said.

Moore said voters should return him as chief justice because he is the more experienced candidate after serving in court posts from prosecutor to chief justice.

Moore was born on Feb. 11, 1947. His father was a World War II veteran and a construction worker and Moore spent part of his childhood in a home that did not have indoor plumbing.

"He was very smart. He had a tremendous camaraderie with his classmates," said Louis Eyermann, who attended West Point with Moore.

"He is a tremendous individual. He loves America," Eyermann said.

In Vietnam, Moore served in the 188th Military Police Company. He later graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law and became deputy district attorney of Etowah County in 1977. In 1992, Gov. Guy Hunt appointed him circuit judge.

He sprang from the relative anonymity of country judge to an icon of the culture wars when he decided to take a homemade wooden Ten Commandments plaque he made and hang it in the courtroom. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to remove the plaque. The fame that followed helped him win the 2000 race for chief justice.

In a move well-chronicled, Moore had a 5,200-pound Ten Commandments monument, nicknamed Roy's Rock by some, installed in the Alabama Judicial Building. A lawsuit was filed and U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson held that the monument violated the Establishment Clause.

The Court of the Judiciary removed Moore in 2003 for refusing to comply with Thompson's order to remove the monument.

Moore maintains that Thompson's ruling was unlawful. The monument wasn't an establishment of religion, but an ''acknowledgment of God,'' he said.

Moore contends his removal as chief justice was not necessary. The court could have ordered the removal of the monument through an administrative officer, he said.

His defiance cost him. His removal made him ineligible for his full judicial retirement so he scoffs at insinuations from his critics that he has made money from the Ten Commandments.

For the last eight years, Moore's legal focus has been on the Foundation for Moral Law. The organization has filed court briefs in support of a "personhood" amendment, gay marriage ban and in support of gun rights.

Moore bristles when pressed if he would defy another court order as chief justice if he considered it afoul of the Constitution. The order would go to the entire court, not him individually, he said.

And if it came to him, he said, your duty is always to the Constitution.

He bristles more when asked if that constituted an answer of 'yes.'

"That's a ridiculous question because you never get an order like that from a federal judge. You have to be sued first. I don't plan on being sued.

"If an order came down to the court then the court would answer that. Your oath is always to the Constitution and any judge that said they would obey anything, then they would obey an order to kill somebody or to take someone's rights away. It's a ridiculous question."

He said he doesn't plan on doing anything as chief justice that would invite another showdown with a federal court.

"I don't. I've said I wouldn't return the monument. What are they going to sue me for, what I say?"

At recent campaign stops Moore has not mentioned the Ten Commandments monument. He instead has partly focused on national issues and portrayed the election as choice between Democrats and Republicans and two different paths for the country.

At a Tea Party rally in DeKalb, he criticized efforts to legalize gay marriage saying such unions would be the "ultimate destruction" of the country. At others he derided the national debt and some of the actions of the Obama White House.

Moore twice ran unsuccessfully for governor, failing to win the Republican primary. However, he roared back from the brink of political oblivion this year to win the GOP nomination for chief justice. With his name recognition and a tide of social conservative voters that also gave Rick Santorum his Alabama win, Moore defeated better-funded candidates without need of a runoff.

"I think the people want to see me returned as chief justice. I think it's a vindication for what I stood for," Moore said.